CNL Lunch Talks

Stacey Conroy & Eri Takahashi

Thursday May 4th 2006, 12:30 PM, 3416 Marie Mount Hall

Lack of DPBE in English

Many previous studies have reported that 4-6 year olds incorrectly allow a pronoun to corefer with a clausemate antecedent (Delay of Principle B Effect, DPBE). A theoretically influential finding is that children respect Principle B when the antecedent is quantificational but not when it is referential (Quantificational Asymmetry, QA); a finding that has been challenged in a recent critique (Elbourne 2005). We show results from a series of 3 new experiments support the contention that there is no QA, and also suggest that English-speaking children display mastery of Principle B once appropriate designs are used.